Most stories about ceramic 3D printing get stuck in comparisons: surface finish vs.CNC, cost vs.molding, powder prices vs.
powder-bed systems, etc.XJet’s CEO, Guy Zimmerman, thinks this is the wrong way to look at it.In an interview with 3DPrint.com, he kept returning to a simple truth: if you judge additive manufacturing (AM) by the same standards you use for traditional manufacturing, you miss the point — and the business.
In ceramics especially, that mistake shows up fast.Many big manufacturers still start by asking whether an additively manufactured part looks and costs like their legacy version.According to Zimmerman, “that mindset slows everything down.” It sets teams up to chase old metrics (polish, bulk density, powder cost) instead of asking the better question: “What parts can we finally make that we couldn’t make before?” That change might sound small, but it really matters.
“The customers who scale fastest aren’t trying to replicate yesterday’s parts.They start with geometry that was impossible or impractical until now, like long, thin internal channels; intricate internal cavities; tiny features that can’t tolerate manual cleanup.When they do that, the business clicks into place,” noted Zimmerman.
Winning trust: “first time, right” Here’s another thing that stood out from my interview: Zimmerman said XJet builds trust by showing customers it can print tough parts right on the first try.“Engineers send a difficult file.The part comes back ‘first time, right.’ The repeatability holds.
That moment is often more important to the customer than pennies per gram or a few minutes saved in debinding.Once a team sees a do-or-die feature hit spec without a pile of iterations, they’re willing to plan production around it,” explained the executive.This is also why post-processing matters, but not in the way you might expect.
Many buyers don’t feel “that pain” until after they’ve bought a machine, said Zimmerman.Then they discover how much time and risk are involved in support removal and cleanup.Instead, he noted that XJet’s pitch leans on something very tangible: “water-based, soluble support that clears internal channels and delicate features without heroics.
You print, you wash, you sinter.No powder vacuuming from tiny cavities, no guesswork about residue trapped inside.” That’s the company’s public claim.Ceramics aren’t chasing metals Most of the AM industry conversation centers on metals.
They get most of the attention.But for Zimmerman, ceramics are in a class of their own.He views them through a different lens.
Guy Zimmerman.Image courtesy of XJet.“Ceramics is smaller and more specialized, but adoption within that smaller world is deeper than people realize.
The scale of any single production run is smaller than that of metals.Yet the percentage of ceramic manufacturers seriously adopting additive manufacturing and using it for production, not prototyping, is higher than most outsiders would guess.” What’s more, when Zimmerman says, “our customers aren’t buying a prototyping machine,” it stands out because even as AM moves into production, most use cases today still revolve around prototyping or tooling — not full-scale production.So much of AM is still linked to prototypes.
Instead, XJet is leaning on parts that are meant to go straight into use.And the reason comes down to two things: geometry and cleanliness.In medical and life-science hardware, you need tiny, clean channels and biocompatible materials; in semiconductor tooling, you need long, precise flow paths and smooth internal surfaces.
In these cases, if support removal and repeatability don’t work, the part fails.XJet’s NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) approach—that is, inkjetting nanoparticle suspensions with a paired soluble support—tackles that challenge directly.It’s where the company is seeing real adoption and has carved out a niche, including parts with channels so fine you can barely see them, yet they run in quantity.
Production over prototypes XJet has chosen to keep its focus narrow.Instead of chasing every possible market, the company chose a few verticals and is digging in rather than running after every project that comes along.In ceramics, that means fluid management, semiconductor, and medical-related applications.
In metals, it’s small, high-value parts like surgical devices and fashion accessories.Zimmerman says they all have three things in common: complex, small, and unforgiving parts where you can’t rely on heavy post-machining or powder blow-out to save the design.As Zimmerman pointed out, “We’re not trying to replace powder bed fusion.
If you’re making larger parts and you can machine them, powder bed is still great.But if you’re making many small parts with exacting surfaces and internal details, machining each piece isn’t feasible, and powder removal becomes a brick wall.That’s where NPJ fits, next to, not against, powder bed workflows.” XJet ceramics.
Image courtesy of XJet.More power: same footprint If you’ve followed XJet since its founding in 2005, you’ve seen the Carmel printer for years.The difference now is an upgrade: a platform refresh that puts a faster “engine” into the same machine customers already know.
Zimmerman says the new Carmel 5000X series is a “step-change in build size, throughput, and cost per part,” while staying compatible with existing trays, materials, and workflows.That compatibility matters, since buyers can swap in the new system, keep their recipes, and immediately see more output.In fact, XJet points to four times the output, twice the tray size, and full compatibility with existing materials.
The main thing is that Zimmerman isn’t selling it as “just faster.” He highlighted that “the platform widens the window where ‘first-time-right’ can happen at production speeds.Bigger trays and a quicker Z don’t help if the first article still needs three redesigns.The promise here is that difficult parts stay difficult, but now you hit them at a scale that makes business sense.” Carmel 5000X.
Image courtesy of XJet.But what makes the new platform useful isn’t just the technical details; it’s the kinds of parts customers are now able to produce with it.It’s not always possible to name the best cases, since medical and semiconductor customers keep their supply chains private.
But the use cases are easy to see.In healthcare, it’s parts for handling blood safely, tiny implant-related pieces that demand both small size and high accuracy, and ready-to-use mechanisms made possible by cleared internal cavities.And in semiconductors, it’s long, thin, fork-like parts and small manifolds with many holes, shapes that are difficult to machine or impossible to mold.
“What matters in all these cases is confidence: can you get the part right the first time, and repeat it without extra effort?” said Zimmerman.“When the answer is yes, orders grow.We had one customer buy a system based on the strength of a single benchmark part with complex internal channels.
No one else could produce it on the first try, but we did.Today, that customer now runs multiple machines and ships the part in volume.” The real buying checklist Zimmerman had a few words of advice for anyone considering ceramic 3D printing: “Don’t begin by copying your CNC catalog.Start with the parts you can’t make today, or can’t make cleanly, or can’t scale without quality drift.
That’s where additive really proves itself.” From left: YBI’s Application Engineer Dylan Nego, CEO Barb Ewing, and XJet CEO Guy Zimmerman with the XJet Carmel 1400 ceramic 3D printer.Image courtesy of America Makes.He also urged companies to treat the first part printed as a real test.
“Bring a geometry that matters, not just a showpiece,” he said.If the first print comes out right, “you’ve cleared the biggest hurdle, and that is trust.” And “before signing a deal, take a hard look at post-processing.If your parts have internal channels or fragile details, the cleanup can make or break your costs.” He also says soluble support and simple washing are key, and urges buyers to check that themselves with their own parts.
Finally, Zimmerman pointed out that scaling isn’t instant: “Even when the tech is right, big companies take a year or two to retrain, qualify, and move into production.You have to plan for a ramp, not a flip.That’s just the way the industry works.” Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.
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